Progress check: it's about deep learning

How did that happen?  Blogging was working as a great way for me to track my progress with my project on accelerating reading.  But suddenly I blinked and it is almost eight weeks since I have actually posted (those drafts which were interrupted don't count!).

In August, the MIT team met at KPMG to share our progress so far.  It was a rich experience in terms of learning so much about our own work as we listened and gave feedback to our peers.  I already feel a bit sad that we don't have many more times together as a team.

I talked to these notes about where I was up to at that point.  I came away clear that getting more mileage in with my own classes and with other classes at my school is my next priority.

Next stop on the sharing back front was a Term 3 toolkit.  This went so much better than the first one.  I was shaking with nerves on the Term Two toolkit because I was utterly unused to presenting to people where I could not see their faces.  But after I presented my Term Two toolkit, I attended Dorothy Burt's toolkit, and got some tips on presenting from here.  For my Term 3 toolkit, I took care to set up a patter with each attendee as they signed in, and that helped me sustain connections throughout the session.  My focus for the Term 3 toolkit was on Team Game Tournaments, and I included some material on Socrative, as no one who attended my Term 2 toolkit was attending the Term 3 toolkit.

This morning, as my fabulous colleague Dan Hanson and I were planning for the Team Game Tournament we are running with both of our classes together next week, Dan shared that there was some discussion about Team Game Tournament at the South Island Sport in Education conference that he attended earlier in the year, and that the recommendation there was that it was best for Maths and Science and for surface knowledge.  Dan has used it for punctuation practise with success.  He and I both think it can be used for deeper level thinking, and that is part of our work next week with our classes.

My reading on the use of Socrative has indicated that it is most frequently being used in the tertiary sector and in STEM subjects.  I haven't seen anything that has really laid out how it is being used to develop deeper level reading, and so that is where my project has evolved to - how can we use Socrative to develop our skills at reading on, between and beyond the lines?  These are the skills needed for gaining Excellence in NCEA English, and thus for the year 10 class that I am focusing on, these are key skills that we are building our capacity with.

So far, the aspect of using Socrative that I think has prompted the deepest learning and engagement has been when we have written responses and then voted on the best response, based on a shared rubric, and analysed why that response is effective and what the next steps are.

My year 10 class are currently focused on dystopian novels, and everyone has selected their own novel to read, after we spent the first part of the term on Mark Smith's Road to Winter.  I was so excited yesterday to see really high levels of engagement, and students confidently using their own blogs to share their books and to explore setting and describe the protagonist and the protagonist's challenge.

In week nine, we have our termly reading comprehension test, and I will be interested to see to what extent our reading progress in class is reflected in the results.